"Walking Peachtree with Georgina Kleege" by Scott LaMascus
Some days and in some contexts my blindness is at the
forefront of my mind. When I am trying on gloves or eating potato chips,
my blindness hardly matters at all.
Sight Unseen (1999)
Georgina Kleege
the letters
keep
running from
my fingers
down pages
across a fly leaf
into another book
words jumping ahead just
out of sight, from page to
page, tab to tab
I know it is here
a few lines about the day
on Peachtree when Atlanta’s
March flowers burst into
lemon and strawberry
three scholars strolled
in stolen sunlight at a crosswalk
Georgina grabbed my arm
let's go by those tulips again and
this time, tell me more, tell
me how they move!
Those lost lines throb electric with recognitions—
my puny language hastily gathered—
rows of monks bobbing heads in the breeze
turning faces of choirs seeking the light of a sun
I could not see and cannot find again.
Scott LaMascus is an educator, writer, and public-humanities advocate who has received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to bring writers to Oklahoma City. Writers hosted include novelist Marilynne Robinson, playwright David Henry Hwang, author Bryan Stevenson, and poets Dana Gioia, Robert Pinsky, and Kathleen Norris. His recent work can be seen in Bracken, Red Ogre Review, Half and One, and Altadeen Poetry Review.
